Aubree turned her back on Kareem and walked down the highway shoulder.

The massive pileup caused by Kareem's three Escalades had completely paralyzed the main arteries into Manhattan. Far below the overpass, a convoy of black vehicles had been forced to detour through the desolate, maze-like streets of the industrial district to avoid the gridlock. It was the perfect chokepoint.

A sharp, rhythmic popping sound echoed from the industrial district below the overpass. Automatic gunfire.

Aubree's muscles reacted before her conscious mind did. She vaulted over the concrete barrier and slid down the embankment, landing silently behind a stack of rusted shipping containers.

She peeked around the corrugated metal edge.

The intersection was a slaughterhouse. Two armored Maybachs were smashed against a concrete pillar. Thick black smoke poured from the engines. Four men in suits lay dead on the grates, their blood mixing with the dirty street water.

A man in a black tactical vest walked slowly toward the second Maybach. He held an assault rifle flush against his shoulder.

The rear door of the Maybach was kicked open from the inside. A tall man tumbled out onto the pavement. He wore a bespoke navy suit, but the fabric over his abdomen was soaked in dark, thick blood.

Hays Crane.

The assassin stopped three feet away. He aimed the barrel of the rifle directly at Hays's head.

Aubree looked down. A shard of broken windshield glass lay near her boot. Her agent instincts took over; she swiftly ripped a strip of fabric from the hem of her faded jacket and wrapped it tightly around her palm. She picked it up. The edge was razor-sharp.

She exploded from the shadows. She closed the distance in three silent, sprinting strides.

Just as the assassin's finger tightened on the trigger, Aubree leaped. Her left arm wrapped around his throat like a steel vice, jerking his head back. Her right hand drove the jagged glass deep into the side of his neck, severing the carotid artery.

Hot, high-pressure blood sprayed across her knuckles.

The assassin dropped the rifle. He collapsed to the asphalt, his body convulsing violently before going completely still.

Aubree kicked the rifle away. She dropped to one knee beside Hays.

Hays's vision was swimming. The blood loss made the world spin. He could only see the dark silhouette of a woman against the harsh sunlight.

Aubree grabbed the lapels of his ruined suit and ripped his shirt open. The bullet wound in his abdomen was pulsing blood.

She pressed both of her blood-slicked hands directly into the wound, applying massive, agonizing pressure to the ruptured artery.

Hays let out a guttural groan. His body arched off the pavement in pure agony. He tried to shove her away.

"Shut up and stay still if you want to breathe," Aubree ordered. Her voice was ice-cold, carrying absolute, unquestionable authority.

The sound of her voice hit Hays like a physical blow.

A violent electric shock ripped through his fractured memories. A flash of fire. A crumbling building. The back of a female Valkyrie pulling him from the rubble three years ago.

Aubree reached into the dead assassin's tactical vest. She pulled out a tourniquet, a packet of alcohol wipes, and a tube of military-grade clotting gel. Her fingers moved with blinding, mechanical speed. She packed the wound and sealed it in seconds. Without missing a beat, she tore open the alcohol wipes and thoroughly scrubbed her own blood-slicked fingers, erasing any trace of her biometric data from his skin and clothes.

Hays forced his eyes open. He reached up with a trembling, bloody hand. His fingers wrapped tightly around Aubree's wrist.

"Who are you?" Hays rasped. His jaw clenched so hard the muscles in his cheek looked ready to snap.

The wail of NYPD sirens pierced the air. A police helicopter chopped through the sky overhead.

Aubree looked down at his hand. She grabbed his thumb and peeled his grip off her wrist with ruthless efficiency. She dropped his arm onto the pavement.

She stood up, grabbed her canvas bag, and sprinted into the maze of the Brooklyn alleys.

Hays watched her disappear. Right before the darkness took him, his eyes locked onto a specific, special wear mark on the shoulder of her olive jacket. He burned the image into his brain.

Aubree walked up the long, crushed-gravel driveway of the Hopkins Manor.

The massive Tudor-style mansion loomed against the setting sun like a gloomy, oppressive fortress. The head butler stood at the top of the marble steps. He saw Aubree walking on foot. His upper lip curled in a visible sneer.

He didn't signal any of the staff to help her with her dusty canvas bag.

Aubree ignored him. She climbed the heavy marble stairs and pushed open the front doors.

The grand foyer was blindingly bright, lit by a massive crystal chandelier. Kennedy stood in the center of the room. She wore a pristine, white haute couture dress. She was arranging white lilies in a crystal vase.

Kennedy heard the footsteps. She turned around. Her face instantly stretched into a wide, flawless smile.

"Aubree! You're home!" Kennedy shrieked. Her voice was dripping with artificial sweetness, loud enough to echo into the hallways where the maids were listening.

Kennedy dropped her shears. She ran forward, throwing her arms wide open to pull Aubree into a tight embrace.

Aubree stopped walking. She shifted her weight and stepped smoothly to the right.

Kennedy stumbled forward, her arms wrapping around empty air. She caught her balance, her smile freezing. A flash of pure, venomous hatred sparked in her eyes.

Kennedy instantly recovered. Her hand moved up, her fingertips lightly touching her own collarbone-her tell when she was playing the victim.

"Oh, look at you," Kennedy said, her voice dropping into a tone of deep pity. She looked at Aubree's worn jacket. "Carl was supposed to bring you to the door. Why did he make you walk? That is so unacceptable."

The maids dusting the banisters stopped moving. They stared at Aubree, waiting for the wild, violent reaction they had all been warned about.

Kennedy took a step closer. She reached out to grab Aubree's hand.

Aubree looked down at Kennedy's perfectly manicured fingers.

"Your green tea perfume is giving me a migraine," Aubree said. Her voice was low, meant only for Kennedy. "Back up."

Kennedy's face turned bright crimson. The flawless mask cracked. She bit her lower lip, and tears instantly welled up in her eyes.

The butler stepped forward, his chest puffed out. He glared at Aubree. "Miss Aubree, there is no need for such hostility. Miss Kennedy has been nothing but gracious."

Aubree completely ignored the butler. She didn't even look at him.

She adjusted the strap of her canvas bag and walked past them. Her heavy boots thudded against the polished hardwood floors.

"I had the best guest room prepared for you!" Kennedy called out behind her, her voice trembling with fake sorrow.

Aubree didn't break her stride. She walked down the dark, narrow hallway to the back of the house. She pushed open the door to the small, neglected bedroom she used to occupy.

The air inside was stale. A thick layer of dust coated the bare mattress. The staff hadn't touched this room in years.

Aubree tossed her bag onto the springs. She turned around and locked the heavy wooden door until it clicked. From downstairs, she could faintly hear Kennedy's saccharine voice complaining to the maids about how her sister's personality was still so peculiar.

Aubree pulled the heavy velvet curtains shut. The bedroom plunged into absolute darkness.

She unzipped the hidden compartment of her canvas bag and pulled out a dense, matte-black metal cube. She pressed her thumb against a smooth indentation on the side. The cube clicked. The metal plates shifted, sliding apart and locking into place. Within seconds, it transformed into a military-grade terminal. A small holographic projector hummed to life.

Aubree reached under her shirt collar. She pulled out a silver necklace with a biometric microchip embedded in the pendant. She snapped it into the terminal's port. A ghostly blue light illuminated her face, reflecting in her cold, unblinking eyes.

Her fingers hit the virtual keyboard. They moved in a blur, typing a sixty-four-character dynamic encryption key. The system bypassed the NSA's baseline firewalls in less than three seconds. She was in the Dark Web.

Lines of code and multi-million dollar bounty contracts cascaded down the screen. Aubree ignored them. She switched her routing protocol to the private frequency of Morpheus, the legendary chess AI controller.

A highly encrypted email popped up. It carried the digital signature of Ellery Prescott—Sterling Prescott's grandfather and the patriarch of the Prescott empire.

Aubree opened it.

I've studied your last three matches against the European grandmasters. Your endgame strategy is unlike anything I've seen in forty years. I require a face-to-face match. Tomorrow night. Prescott Manor. Come as my personal guest.

Aubree stared at the screen. She tilted her head slightly. Ellery Prescott was known as a ruthless predator of Wall Street, but his private passion for chess was legendary among the elite. He had no idea Morpheus was an eighteen-year-old girl. And he certainly didn't know she was betrothed to his worthless grandson.

A faint, cold smile touched her lips. The gala would be the perfect stage to observe the Prescott family from the inside.

She opened a new terminal window and hacked into the Hopkins family's internal schedule. The calendar showed that Kennedy and her stepmother were desperately pulling favors to secure an invitation to the same gala.

Her smile sharpened.

She typed a quick reply to Ellery. A single line of code confirming her attendance.

Then, she switched her digital mask. She logged into the server as Monarch, the apex hacker, and opened a secure chat with Corvus, a top-tier information broker.

Pull the original NYPD crash reports from seven years ago. Eleanor Hopkins.

Corvus replied instantly. The physical archives were scrubbed three years ago. Someone burned the paper trail.

Aubree's stomach tightened. The conspiracy surrounding her mother's death ran much deeper than a simple brake failure. Her fingers flew across the keys, activating a dormant Trojan horse virus she had planted inside the servers of New York's top financial institutions. The data mining began.

Suddenly, a red warning light flashed on the corner of her terminal. The motion sensor outside her bedroom door had been tripped.

Aubree slapped the top of the terminal. The metal plates collapsed instantly, folding back into a harmless black cube. She shoved it under the mattress. She glided across the room without making a sound, pressed her back against the wall beside the door, and stopped breathing.

The brass doorknob slowly turned. It hit the lock mechanism with a soft, metallic click. The person outside paused. Heavy, muffled footsteps slowly backed away and faded down the hall.

Aubree recognized the heavy tread. Gaye's personal bodyguard.

She let out a slow, silent breath. She walked to the bare mattress and lay down in the dark, her mind already calculating the exact strategy she would deploy at the Prescott gala.